JOBS COMING TO STATE — BUT WILL WORKERS BE READY?

It’s unclear if enough qualified employees will be available to fill spots

California will add 6.3 million job openings by 2020, but it’s no guarantee the workforce will be qualified for them, a new study by Georgetown University says.

The study, called Recovery 2020, projects 55 million job openings across the country from 2010 to 2020, assuming that the federal government can overcome budgetary issues.

The problem is that some of the fastest-growing occupations will be in health care and STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. Some of the jobs will require specific, higher levels of education, but the report overall forecasts a 5 million employee shortfall in qualified workers across the country. Nicole Smith, a Georgetown research professor, said the job expansion is enough to keep up with population growth, but that’s not the biggest issue.

“It’s not necessarily whether we have enough jobs, the question is really whether the population will be equipped,” she said.

Across the country, 65 percent of the jobs through 2020 will require at least some college. In California, that requirement rises to 67 percent.

Specifically, the university projects that California through 2020 will add 3.5 million jobs from retirements and 2.8 million new jobs (17 percent growth). That’s up from the first time Georgetown did this study in 2010. At the time, it projected California would add 5.5 million new job openings by 2018.

“We forecast less jobs than we’re forecasting now because we were coming out of one of the deepest recessions we’ve had,” Smith said.

In California, health care and social assistance; and professional, scientific and technical sectors are each forecast to grow 27 percent through 2020, adding a combined 800,000 jobs, roughly, over the decade. Most of those jobs require a bachelor’s degree or better. For some of the STEM jobs, you need a degree in engineering and science.

Smith said a question moving forward is how to graduate enough people with the right skills.

In San Diego, there are various efforts to keep students motivated and perhaps get them interested in engineering. Holly Smithson, CEO of CleanTECH San Diego, said last month that the nonprofit started a new program with school districts across the region to make classrooms and campuses energy efficient.

Smithson said a byproduct of students seeing the effects of the new technology in their daily lives could motivate them to pursue the sciences.

“We’re opening the doors and opening the minds of these students to think about pursuing STEM by virtue of living in a sustainable and learning in a sustainable classroom,” Smithson said.

Percentagewise, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction are expected to grow the most in California, at 38 percent through 2020. The field is projected to add 17,000 jobs for a workforce total of 63,730.

The government will still be the state’s largest employer in 2020, with 2.2 million jobs.

Blue-collar occupations will see the least growth, expanding 11 percent through 2020, the report says. Georgetown says the demand for physical skills will continue to decline, except for “near vision,” the ability to read a computer screen at close distances.